(Sam Rolley) The government’s top watchdog revealed in a new report that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) essentially maintained a database of law-abiding gun owners by ignoring its own policies.

According to Government Accountability Office (GAO) auditors, ATF failed to remove the names of gun purchasers from its Multiple Sales (MS) database and another system called Access 2000 which allowed it to stockpile information on lawful gun owners by scouring the records of out of business federal firearms license holders.